Agony of the food: from sugar cane expansion to the movement of the fruits and vegetables production and distribution in the state of são paulo brazil (2006 - 2017)

Author(s)

Valmir José de Oliveira Valério

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Presidente Prudente. 2019-12-19.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia. Presidente Prudente
• Defense date: 2019-12-16
• Advisor: Eduardo Paulon Girardi

Abstract

Essential in maintaining the conditions of capital accumulation, the food regime and its corporate stage give rise to food empires, modes of planning that bring the potential to fully control the production, distribution and consumption of food. Despite its global scope, the control currently exercised by the food empires is effectively carried out on the scale of each of the producing municipalities, which highlights the need not only for the articulation of scales to understand the processes, but mainly of the importance of thinking about its active production, a strategy by which it is possible to point out ways to overcome the dependency relationships implied by the large supply chains. In this context, the expansion of monocultures such as sugar cane and the consequent local and regional reduction of food production reinforces the separation that allows food empires to control producers and consumers. Thus, based on the theoretical and conceptual references of Geography, this research aims to demonstrate the validity of the thesis that the expansion of sugarcane implies a reduction in the production of fruits and vegetables and, thus, in the increasing distances traveled by the food. In the state of São Paulo, the expansion of sugarcane agribusiness presupposes the increasing incorporation of areas previously used for other types of cultivation, which inevitably includes food. With this, their production becomes difficult and reduced, especially at local and regional scales, with special gravity in the “new” areas of sugarcane expansion, such as the Western region of the state. Consequently, in order for feed, understood as the meeting between food production and consumption, to be realized, more distances are added, which implies an increase in transportation and storage costs, waste and also prices for consumers, which reduces households' access to food. In such a way, from production in the field to the end-consumer tables, the current corporate dietary regime subject’s food to a sort of tour of degradation, in which the widening remoteness between production and consumption defines and redefines the boundaries of “agony” of the food". Thus, based on statistical data and field information, I analyze, in the period from 2006 to 2017, the evolution of São Paulo state horticultural production in relation to the evolution of the sugarcane area. In addition, to support the understanding of the movement of the foods from production to distribution, I analyze the cases of CEAGESP units of the municipalities of Araçatuba/SP, Presidente Prudente/SP, Ribeirão Preto/SP, São José do Rio Preto/SP and São Paulo/SP. As a reference for the studies on the meanings of the food movement in space, I also present the debate on food security and sovereignty in order to highlight the different conceptions, interests and priorities in terms of food production and supply. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 15/26887-7 - Territorialization sugarcane agribusiness and food supply in the state of são paulo (2003 - 2015): analysis from the food sovereignty
• Grantee: Valmir José de Oliveira Valério
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate